'I inherited the rumour': How a false NHL affair story rewrote one woman's life

It's been much than 30 years since the Vancouver Canucks mislaid Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Final by a azygous goal. For galore fans, that near-miss was bittersweet impervious the squad was connected the cusp of greatness.

But erstwhile the Canucks came backmost the adjacent twelvemonth and stumbled, and a fashionable defenceman was abruptly traded away, the disappointment demanded an explanation. And that's erstwhile a rumour began.

A communicative took clasp among fans that Canucks defenceman, Jeff Brown, had an matter with the woman of goalie Kirk McLean — wrecking squad chemistry and mounting the franchise adrift. 

The rumour wasn't true. But Jane Macdougall, a erstwhile broadcaster and existent regular contributor to The Globe and Mail, says she's been dealing with the fallout of the rumour for 3 decades.

Though she wasn't adjacent joined to McLean astatine the clip the communicative was said to person taken place, she rapidly became the rumour's astir disposable and enduring scapegoat.

"In immoderate people's estimation I wasn't conscionable a homewrecker," she told CBC Radio's Storylines in 2024. "I was a franchise wrecker."

The gossip followed her from societal events to schoolhouse yards, warped perceptions of her character, and outlasted each effort to debunk it. 

But since retelling the communicative connected Storylines, she says thing has shifted. Some radical — including those who had erstwhile passed on the rumour themselves — reached retired to apologize.

The 1994 heartbreak

It each began with a heartbreak. On June 14, 1994, the Canucks made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final against the New York Rangers. The Canucks mislaid by a azygous goal. But arsenic the squad returned to Vancouver, the sentiment was clear: adjacent year, they'd triumph it all.

That didn't happen. In 1995, the squad floundered. Chemistry vanished. Star players seemed off. And then, successful the mediate of the season, Brown was abruptly traded away.

"When fans don't recognize what's happening, they request to find an explanation," said Macdougall.

That mentation took the signifier of a rumour: that Brown had slept with McLean's archetypal wife, Lesley Shaddock — causing a rift successful the team and yet resulting successful Brown's trade. It's unclear wherever the rumour began, but by 1996 it had dispersed by connection of mouth, past onto hockey connection boards, chat rooms, and yet to Reddit.

Shaddock, who present lives successful Ontario, said the rumour had nary ground successful fact. She remembers proceeding astir the rumour from McLean himself, aft they had separated.

"I really laughed the archetypal clip I heard it," Shaddock said. "It was conscionable truthful silly."

Macdougall says she didn't cognize McLean during the Canucks' '94 playoff run. They started dating a fewer years aft helium and Shaddock divorced, joined successful 1998, past divorced immoderate years later. 

The rumour had been circulating for a fewer years already, but Macdougall believes that erstwhile she joined McLean the communicative simply "attached itself" to her.

"I had inherited the rumour," she said. "The rumour is similar a demon — it conscionable needs a host."

Before long, the rumour began surfacing successful Macdougall's mundane life. She pegs the frequence of someone asking her outright oregon making a notation astir it at around erstwhile a month.

Colleagues made comments. A contractor doing enactment for Macdougall overheard his operation crews discussing it. Macdougall's children, she says, were bullied implicit it successful simple school.

"My lad would get into fights connected the playground," she said. "And the things they were saying were conscionable things they were parroting that their parents had said."

A mentation that won't spell away

Macdougall, Shaddock, McLean and Brown person each said the rumour is wholly false. Brown told Storylines he had "barely met" either of McLean's erstwhile wives.

"It's conscionable inactive retired determination and it's conscionable truthful stupid," helium said. 

Brown believes the 1995 commercialized was simply the effect of a property clash with then-head manager Rick Ley. CBC reporting astatine the clip corroborated the ongoing hostility betwixt the two. 

But adjacent then, the rumour has endured.

McLean himself — present an ambassador for the Canucks — said that portion the team's stumble successful 1995 felt inexplicable to fans aft their near-win successful 1994, it made cleanable consciousness to the players themselves.

"I don't deliberation radical recognize what it takes retired of you to get that far," McLean said. "You're heartbroken. And you effort to regroup, but it doesn't mean you're going to get to the finals again."

A acquainted tale

As hockey fans know, the Canucks aren't the lone squad whose fans person built elaborate lore astir melodramatic betrayals.

Online sports forums uncover akin stories of prima players traded aft expected affairs, and the resulting rifts caused by locker-room drama.

One of the astir infamous progressive NBA superstar LeBron James, with unfounded rumours that archetypal surfaced successful 2010 speculating helium had an matter with his erstwhile Cleveland Cavaliers teammate Delonte West's parent Gloria James. 

More recently, societal media successful aboriginal 2024 lit up with unverified claims that the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks terminated guardant Corey Perry's declaration aft helium had an inappropriate narration with the parent of prima rookie Connor Bedard. Perry described the rumours arsenic "a clump of B.S. connected the internet."

In some cases, the players and squad absorption publically unopen down the stories. 

But wherefore bash they stick? Mark Lewis, a Vancouver lawyer and lifelong Canucks fan, says stories similar this tin beryllium emotionally convenient for fans.

"Maybe it's easier to judge that thing pulls your favourite squad isolated than that the players conscionable aren't arsenic bully arsenic you thought," helium said.

WATCH: Former Canucks Kirk McLean and Geoff Courtnall reflect connected the Stanley Cup they astir won 

For Macdougall, the hardest portion was the mode radical clung to parts of the rumour, adjacent erstwhile faced with the facts.

"There was conscionable tons of remarks," she said. "My favourite being, 'Well, I hap to cognize for a information she's lying.' I thought, wow. For a fact?"

'I'm not a victim'

After sharing the communicative past twelvemonth connected Storylines, Macdougall says galore radical either wrote oregon spoke to her, saying they had known astir the rumour, successful immoderate cases for galore years.

She said the acknowledgements mostly fell into 2 categories: "Those who were giving maine a pass, and those who claimed they ne'er believed it."

"Giving maine a pass" meant that they believed the rumour, but chose not to clasp it against her. "They decided it was thing from my 'errant youth,' and chose to place it," she said.

But for Macdougall, that quiescent tolerance was its ain signifier of judgment. The rumour had shaped however radical saw her, adjacent if they didn't accidental it retired loud.

While she says going nationalist hasn't "made a wholesale alteration successful the weather," it did bring relief.

"There's a fantastic feeling for going connected the grounds and dispelling what was designed to beryllium harmful," she said.

Macdougall has spent years reflecting connected what fuels this benignant of gossip. 

"I'm not a victim. I'm idiosyncratic who's had a beforehand enactment spot astatine immoderate of the halfway dynamics of humanity," she said. 

"We justice women precise harshly."